


Sense of self-worth

by rafamarkos5998



Series: I Can See Clearly Now (The Rage Has Gone) [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Because I'm sick and angry and frustrated and in need of this, Drinking, Jason Todd Deserves Happiness, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason's getting hammered to dull the pain here, Jason's in a bad place, M/M, Not tagging as gen because I don't want to lead anyone along, POV Alternating, POV Third Person Limited, Pre-Slash, Protective Tim Drake, Suicidal Thoughts, Talia and Bruce are just mentioned briefly, Tim Drake gives the hugs, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Tim wants to make it better, and rise like jason, and the pep talks, in pain and with lots of mistakes, no beta we die like robins, that will probably lead to ruin, this is mainly between Tim and Jason, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:54:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28174986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rafamarkos5998/pseuds/rafamarkos5998
Summary: Jason's trying to drown his sorrows with alcohol. It doesn't help.He runs across roofs. Tim catches him.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Series: I Can See Clearly Now (The Rage Has Gone) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020462
Comments: 9
Kudos: 145





	Sense of self-worth

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a busy week, followed by a day of being really sick. I might have written this while feverish. Sorry if it feels incoherent.

Jason felt the noises around him dip in and out of focus as he felt the alcohol settle in his stomach and enter his bloodstream.

Okay, he couldn't actually feel it enter his bloodstream, but he liked the imagery. Sue him.

The lights of the club flickered in a hallucinogenic pattern, and the dizziness mounted when he tried to get up.

Jason scrunched his eyes up pushed ahead, bravely fighting through the spinning lights that definitely wanted to lay him flat on the floor.

Mean lights. He should stick to Tim.

Shit, Tim would probably hate it if he happened to find Jason drunk off his ass. He needed to sober up, and _fast_.

_Okay, Jason, time to get back on track. Soberrr.... up!_

His vision remained just as confusingly incomprehensible as before.

_Soberrr! Up!_

He blinked hard, trying to clear his eyes. It didn't change a damn thing.

_Fuck. This is bad._

Well, if this wasn't working, a couple miles of running on rooftops should do it, right?

The air was colder up there, so it would be a much faster way of sobering up than running on the ground. Less chance of hitting people, too.

Yeah, that was a good plan.

He pulled his jacket closer, hunched down, and decided to head for the closest empty alleyway.

_Red Hood Top Sneaky Mode™, activate._

It took him a few minutes to find a suitable alleyway since it needed to be deserted and have easily climbable buildings. He didn't have a grapple on him now, just a spare domino.

He could do without the pistols for a night. He wasn't patrolling, he was just trying to sober up before he got home.

He needed to get home. At least before Tim rolled around.

He almost wished that the new Robin would just... give up and move on. Would make it easier for both of them.

Tim was... nice. He was putting effort into understanding Jason and helping him cope.

If there was such a thing as coping with being murdered and resurrected violently. And the feeling of abandonment on either side of that.

But Tim was also a reminder of all the things that he had lost, as well as a sign of the things that he had never had.

He didn't know how to deal with that.

It wasn't Tim's fault that people liked him more than Jason. It wasn't Tim's fault that Bruce protected him, that Dick cared for him, that Barbara respected him, that the Team loved him.

He could attribute malice to one of them, but not to all.

If all of them loved Tim and hated Jason, it meant that Jason had never deserved any of their love.

He felt tears well up in his eyes at the thought, as he stared out at the skyline.

Gritting his teeth, he took a few steps back, ran for the edge, and jumped.

* * *

Tim was having a Good Day®.

He had been able to skip most of his allotted time at WE today, going in just for a meeting about the design for the next processor lineup from WayneTech and their plans for building a new silicon fab to relieve their dependency on TSMC. He had managed to chill at the Tower for a bit, before coming down to Gotham for a bit of patrol. And to top it off, there had been no prison breaks or villain attacks today. All he'd encountered in the past few hours was two muggers, and one of them had already been beaten into submission by the old lady who was supposed to be the victim.

Old people were scary. They could turn on you and surprise you at any moment. Hell, Alfred was long past the age of retirement, and he still managed to be scarier than Bruce at times.

Thus, he had time to think about the silicon fab, and how they could propel good old-fashioned domestic manufacturing with it. Could probably net a tax break, make it inch closer to profitability in the short term while they worked out a manufacturing process that could compete with the established firms.

Also, he could think about Jason, who he was due to check up on in... 90 minutes.

He felt a warm, fuzzy feeling spread across his chest at the thought.

Despite the initial hiccups with Jason's rage and self-destructive impulses, coupled with Talia's extreme protectiveness, he had managed to gain regular access to Jason's place. Considering that he was one of three people who had it and that even Alfred hadn't been given the privilege of seeing his grandson any more, he was always thankful for the gift he had been given.

Although Jason adamantly refused to see it as such. He always said that he only allowed Tim because he was a good, kind, understanding guy and that he wanted Tim around.

Tim didn't know how to name what that statement had made him feel. It was nice, but he wanted to be able to name it.

Before he could sink further down the rabbit hole of deciphering his thoughts and feelings about Jason, he noticed a figure running down a rooftop, a couple hundred metres away.

Before he could take a good look, the figure had jumped off of the roof he was on and flew across to the next.

Tim felt his legs give chase automatically before his brain could catch up with what the actual fuck was going on.

He shot out the grapple, and as he swung through the air, he noticed that the guy was wearing a leather jacket, cargo pants, and a red domino.

_Jason._

He decided to slow down and follow the second Robin from a distance. He wasn't going to interfere, he was just there to support his predecessor if needed.

That decision was rendered pointless when Jason suddenly veered off course and decided to take a much more risky jump.

_Shit. I've been caught._

He tried to speed up to catch Jason, but the older Robin was nearly a foot taller, a lot more experienced and had much bigger muscles (even after a few months of civilian life).

Tim tried to stop thinking about the muscles as he put all he had into keeping up.

His gear was slowing him down. Jason was wearing his normal clothes, which meant that he wasn't being slowed down by armour. The grapple was the sole reason behind Tim keeping up.

Still, Tim couldn't afford to ditch anything - he was still on duty as a vigilante right now, and he had to finish his patrol. He couldn't afford to spend the night chasing Jason.

Jason was slowly rising higher and higher, going for more and more risky jumps and reaching out for higher and higher rooftops. Tim kept having to use the grapple more and more frequently.

Until all of a sudden, he stopped on a ledge, looking down.

* * *

Tim decided to approach slowly. Jason was still too far away to catch, in case he... in case he did something ridiculous. He needed to get into position before making a move.

At least, that was the plan, before Jason began to speak.

"I wanted to hate you."

"...I understand, Jason, it must have looked like Bruce didn't care about you. Considering the events before you... before."

"You can say it, Timbers. I died, and I know that it happened. I've accepted it."

"Doesn't mean that you're comfortable with being reminded of it all the time."

"Yeah... I'm a weak little shit, aren't I?"

"No." Tim shook his head vigorously, even though Jason had his back turned towards him. "You died, and came back, got dipped in a Lazarus Pit, and were pretty much alone with the League for years. And you still managed to be a hero."

"Despite the killing?"

Tim paused for a second, unable to formulate a reply.

"Am I just a charity case for you, like I was for Bruce?" Jason turned around to face Tim. "Are you here because you want me to fix me, make me 'go to the light' and stop being a villain? Because I have to inform you, that's not going to happen. What will you do when you're tired of dealing with my shit and know that I'm not going to change my views on what needs to be done?"

Tim shook his head again, before replying. "I don't want to fix you, Jason. Well, I do, but it's more of wanting to help you get better on your own terms. And if it involves you remaining a lethal vigilante, I'm not going to try and argue it."

"Really? Because Bruce might not like that. At all."

"I'm not Bruce. I might work by his rules, but I don't share his beliefs. And he will never control that."

"You clearly don't know the guy, then."

"If he thinks he can decide my moral compass for me, he's in for a surprise."

"And what will you do when you run up against him after a disagreement?"

"I don't need Bruce on my side to be a hero. I have a lot more people to rely on than just a random Bat-themed vigilante in Gotham."

Jason laughed at that, shaking his head.

"I keep forgetting that they actually like you."

"Jason, I know that you guys didn't have the best relationship before-"

"Didn't have the best relationship? That's the understatement of the century, Replacement." Tim knew this nickname was not meant to be endearing, like the others. "They hated me for existing. They loved Dick, and Dick hated me, so they hated me on his behalf. They barely gave me the time of day, and when they did, they all made sure to remind me about how I would never be as good as Dick. They didn't have to say the words like Barb did, but their actions made it pretty clear."

Tim felt his skin crawl in response to the vitriolic outburst.

"You have everything I ever wanted from anyone. Dick loves you, Bruce loves you, the other Bats we have now love you, the hero community loves you. Meanwhile, they decided that my death was a good enough excuse to both drag my name through the mud and fuel whatever guilt complex they had, and conveniently ignore that they treated me like a piece of shit."

"Jason-"

"You know, I used to have bright red hair."

Tim's brain screeched to a halt. "What?"

"I had red hair. When Bruce adopted me, he asked me to colour it black."

"Why?"

"At first, it was to keep me safe from Ma Gunn's people after her operation got taken down. Then I had to do it to be Robin because Dick had black hair, and I needed to act the part. And then I had to go to school with it, because there was never enough time to wash out the dye properly before school and it would be easier to just have black hair, and... I never saw my real hair colour again."

Tim didn't know how to respond to that.

"And after I came back, my hair was red again, but it no longer looked like my hair, because I barely remembered it that way."

"You're... still doing it? Dying your hair?"

"Yeah. Because even though my hair still grows red, it's no longer the right colour in what remains of my fucked-up head."

Jason fell into an uneasy silence, and Tim had nothing to say to break it.

"I wanted to hate you. Hate you for taking everything that I had. Hate you for having everything that I had tried to hard to get but never got when you were just handed everything on a silver platter."

Tim didn't know what to feel about that, about Jason wanting to hate him.

"But then I saw that everyone else who had hated me for fucking existing loved you, even Dick, so the problem clearly wasn't me _being_ Robin, it was _me_ being Robin. You're good, Tim. You're good at being Robin. Much better than I ever was or will be. I was just a worthless replacement for Dick who never measured up to the real thing. It was me. I should never have taken the costume, I should have listened to Bruce, I should have not died to the Joker, and I should have just suffocated in my grave. At least that would make me good for something."

"Shut up!"

Jason flinched back in surprise, but Tim was not done.

"You were my Robin."

"Hate to say it, kid, but you chose a pretty shit role model. Sorry about-"

"You don't get to say that. You were my hero. I ran across rooftops for years to get blurry photographs of you. I followed you for years when you were on the streets. I saw you beat up criminals, save victims and rescue Batman when shit hit the fan. You were the one I looked up to."

"Sorry to disappoint, but-"

"No. You don't get to just put yourself down like that. You came back from the dead, and even when you had the chance to leave it all behind, you still decided to be a hero. Despite everything, you're still here."

"Only because I fucked up."

"If that's what you think, then I'm happy you fucked up. And I'm going to make sure you keep fucking up until you learn how to cope with... whatever this is."

"What this is, is me giving up. You should probably spend your efforts elsewhere. Unless you have some powers you haven't told me about, you can't just snap your fingers and fix this."

"Then I guess it's good that I'm Robin. Being Robin gives me magic."

Jason froze, his expression betraying his shock. Then he laughed, shoulders shaking.

Tim slowly approached the man, but all he got in response was more laughter.

When he was in range, he reached out and pulled Jason into a tight hug, making sure he couldn't get to the ledge.

He felt his predecessor tremble more and more as the laughter turned into broken sobs, and hugged him tighter.

And for the first time in ages, Tim prayed. To God, or the Devil, or whatever other entities would bother to listen.

_Please, don't make a liar out of me._

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a piece about how Jason wasn't written particularly well as Robin (on the whole that is - _The Diplomat's Son_ is still the best piece of Robin media there is), and how Tim, Dick and Damian have been treated better by canon in pretty much all respects. But then I actually wrote it under a 100 °F fever, so... I hope it's still readable.


End file.
